Magnetic reconnection from a multiscale instability cascade

Moser, Auna; Bellan, Paul M.

doi:10.1038/nature10827

Cited by 75 publications

(111 citation statements)

References 25 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

105

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The RT instability quickly erodes and breaks the jet structure, leading to fast magnetic reconnection. 20,24 Hydrogen plasmas are found to develop kink instability in a very similar manner; but no distinct RT instability has been observed for hydrogen jets with g $ 10 10 m/s 2 ; RT instabilities with axial wavelength k z ¼ 3 À 5 cm are observed only in some rare shots with strong lateral acceleration g ¼ 10 11 À 3 Â 10 11 m/s 2 . We name the two cases as type I and type II hydrogen jets, respectively.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…3 of Ref. 20. This simple semi-quantitative analysis shows that the perturbation can be considered to be incompressible…”

Section: Perturbation and Linearizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…20 In the experiment, a plasma jet is created and collimated to a uniform radius of 2-5 cm by MHD forces. The plasma inside the jet is singly ionized with an estimated electron density n e % 10 21 À 10 22 m À3 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

A hybrid Rayleigh-Taylor-current-driven coupled instability in a magnetohydrodynamically collimated cylindrical plasma with lateral gravity

Zhai

Bellan

2016

Physics of Plasmas

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We present an MHD theory of Rayleigh-Taylor instability on the surface of a magnetically confined cylindrical plasma flux rope in a lateral external gravity field. The Rayleigh-Taylor instability is found to couple to the classic current-driven instability, resulting in a new type of hybrid instability that cannot be described by either of the two instabilities alone. The lateral gravity breaks the axisymmetry of the system and couples all azimuthal modes together. The coupled instability, produced by combination of helical magnetic field, curvature of the cylindrical geometry, and lateral gravity, is fundamentally different from the classic magnetic Rayleigh-Taylor instability occurring at a two-dimensional planar interface. The theory successfully explains the lateral Rayleigh-Taylor instability observed in the Caltech plasma jet experiment [Moser and Bellan, Nature 482, 379 (2012)]. Potential applications of the theory include magnetic controlled fusion, solar emerging flux, solar prominences, coronal mass ejections, and other space and astrophysical plasma processes.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…3 of Ref. 20. This simple semi-quantitative analysis shows that the perturbation can be considered to be incompressible…”

Section: Perturbation and Linearizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

A hybrid Rayleigh-Taylor-current-driven coupled instability in a magnetohydrodynamically collimated cylindrical plasma with lateral gravity

Zhai

Bellan

2016

Physics of Plasmas

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The major features visible in the coded aperture image are the jet front and the kinking of the jet axis. 11,15,16,19,20 The relative intensities of the jet front and the jet axis differ by a factor of 20-50. The jet axis undergoes a kink instability where the axis accelerates into an expanding spiral.…”

Section: A Image Reconstructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

1D fast coded aperture camera

Haw

Bellan

2015

Review of Scientific Instruments

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A fast (100 MHz) 1D coded aperture visible light camera has been developed as a prototype for imaging plasma experiments in the EUV/X-ray bands. The system uses printed patterns on transparency sheets as the masked aperture and an 80 channel photodiode array (9 V reverse bias) as the detector. In the low signal limit, the system has demonstrated 40-fold increase in throughput and a signal-to-noise gain of ≈7 over that of a pinhole camera of equivalent parameters. In its present iteration, the camera can only image visible light; however, the only modifications needed to make the system EUV/X-ray sensitive are to acquire appropriate EUV/X-ray photodiodes and to machine a metal masked aperture.

show abstract

“…However, on observing electron and ion heating in a merging experiment, Ono et al 23 argued that electrons are Ohmically heated, whereas ions are heated by shock or viscous damping in the reconnection exhaust. 23 We report the following sequence of experimental observations of a spontaneous three-dimensional (3-D) Hallmediated reconnection: (i) a current-carrying MHD-driven plasma jet self-forms, 24 (ii) the jet undergoes a kink instability, 25 (iii) the kink provides the environment for development of a secondary, Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instability, 26 (iv) the RT instability chokes the current channel radius to cause a fast localized reconnection, 26 (v) the reconnection produces localized electron and ion heating, and (vi) the reconnection also radiates broadband obliquely propagating, right-hand circularly polarized whistler waves. These observations show that Hall physics is important even though the plasma jet is collisional, that electrons are plausibly heated by Ohmic dissipation, and that ions are plausibly heated stochastically.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extreme ultra-violet burst, particle heating, and whistler wave emission in fast magnetic reconnection induced by kink-driven Rayleigh-Taylor instability

2016

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A spatially localized energetic extreme ultra-violet (EUV) burst is imaged at the presumed position of fast magnetic reconnection in a plasma jet produced by a coaxial helicity injection source; this EUV burst indicates strong localized electron heating. A circularly polarized high frequency magnetic field perturbation is simultaneously observed at some distance from the reconnection region indicating that the reconnection emits whistler waves and that Hall dynamics likely governs the reconnection. Spectroscopic measurement shows simultaneous fast ion heating. The electron heating is consistent with Ohmic dissipation, while the ion heating is consistent with ion trajectories becoming stochastic.

show abstract

Magnetic reconnection from a multiscale instability cascade

Cited by 75 publications

References 25 publications

A hybrid Rayleigh-Taylor-current-driven coupled instability in a magnetohydrodynamically collimated cylindrical plasma with lateral gravity

A hybrid Rayleigh-Taylor-current-driven coupled instability in a magnetohydrodynamically collimated cylindrical plasma with lateral gravity

1D fast coded aperture camera

Extreme ultra-violet burst, particle heating, and whistler wave emission in fast magnetic reconnection induced by kink-driven Rayleigh-Taylor instability

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About